Air Arabia

FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT AIR ARABIA - PAGE 5

NEW DELHI: The UAE-based Air Arabia has announced its entry into the Indian market with an introductory one-way fare of Rs 3,000 between Mumbai and Sharjah. "The cheaper fares, which have been announced in time to induce holidayers, will see more Indians planning overseas vacations this year," said Kapil Kaul, senior V-P of Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation. "The industry was looking at more than 25 per cent surge in overseas travel bookings from India this year.

VISAKHAPATNAM: Air India will start flying to international destinations from Visakhapatnam with first flight to Dubai via Hyderabad scheduled to take off on March 27. Addressing a press conference here today, Rajya Sabha member T Subbarami Reddy said that the Union Minister of Civil Aviation Ajit Singh would inaugurate the first flight. He said he has already discussed with the Union Government the proposal for modernisation of the airport here and for night landing facility.

VISAKHAPATNAM: Air India will start flying to international destinations from Visakhapatnam with first flight to Dubai via Hyderabad scheduled to take off on March 27. Addressing a press conference here today, Rajya Sabha member T Subbarami Reddy said that the Union Minister of Civil Aviation Ajit Singh would inaugurate the first flight. He said he has already discussed with the Union Government the proposal for modernisation of the airport here and for night landing facility.

DUBAI: Dubai, owner of Emirates airline, said it plans to start a low-cost carrier within a year to tap travel demand in the Gulf, and is looking to equip its fleet with single-aisle aircraft. The carrier, which as yet has no name, will be managed by the head of Emirates' head of commercial operations and fly to destinations within 4-1/2 hours of the Gulf Arab emirate, Emirates Chairman Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed al-Maktoum told on Tuesday. The fleet will be equipped either with Boeing Co 737 aircraft or Airbus A320s, Sheikh Ahmed said, after state-owned Emirates News Agency (WAM)

MADURAI: A PIL seeking inclusion of Madurai airport as a "point of call" in the Bilateral Air Service Agreement (BASA) was admitted by the Madras High court bench here today. A Division Bench comprising justices N Paulvasanthakumar and P Devadoss ordered issuance of notice to officials including the Secretary, Ministry of Civil Aviation, Director General of Civil Aviation, Chairman, Airports Authority of India, and Director AAI, returnable within two weeks. The petitioner J Mahendra Varman said a number of foreign carriers were interested in operating flights to Madurai.

NEW DELHI: Air-India has finally woken up to the threat from the aviation hub being created in the Middle East, more specifically in the United Arab Emirates. The latest irritant is from Air Arabia — a UAE-based low cost carrier, which has asked for government permission to operate in India. The country's international carrier finds itself in a situation where its yet-to-be-born baby — Air India Express — may be headed for a miscarriage because of the frequencies and flight dynamics of carriers in the UAE. Air India Express, the low-cost carrier from the Air India stable, plans to operate specifically on the Gulf route.

NEW DELHI: In a move that is likely to bring down air fares in the India-Gulf sector, the government has allowed Qatar Airways (QA) to launch flights to Delhi and increase capacity in the Mumbai-Doha sector. The Doha-based airline — which has aggressive expansion plans for India — has also been permitted to deploy additional capacity on various other routes including Mumbai and Thiruvananthapuram. Since the entry of Air-India Express and Air Arabia is already leading to a southward movement in air fares in the India-Gulf sector, the additional capacity granted to QA is expected to benefit customers further by intensifying competition.

NEW DELHI: The Indian skies are set to witness an invasion of a different kind. A bevy of aviation industry big-wigs — led by IATA director general Giovanni Bisignani, India-born promoter of Malaysia's low cost airline Air Asia Tony Fernandes and Jazeera Airways chairman Marwan Boodai — will be queuing up at Visa offices across the globe in the next two months, seeking a passage to India. The reason: To gain first-hand knowledge about the explosive growth in the Indian aviation market and explore opportunities to ride the boom.

NEW DELHI: International carriers, who survived the airline industry slump in 2001 and are seeking to consolidate gains, find flying to an economically resurgent India a profitable proposition. All international airlines that are on an expansion mode have made it a point to add an India gateway to their plans, be it Finnish national carrier Finnair, Delta Airlines or UAE's budget carrier Air Arabia. Already, the likes of Qantas, which withdrew service post September 2001 terrorist attacks in the US, has resumed flights to India.

NEW DELHI: In a development that could be of serious concern to Indian carriers, Dubai-based Emirates flew more international travellers in and out of India than Air India in 2011-12, according to official data. Jet Airways, however, grabbed little more of the market share than Emirates when it came to international air traffic emanating out of India. While Emirates cornered 13.04 per cent of the total market share of India, flying 45.32 lakh passengers in and out of the country in 2011-12, Air India and its subsidiary Air India Express jointly carried 41.38 lakh passengers or 11.91 per cent, the data showed.